What exactly is an ideal arcade? For some, it’s an arcade full of the latest Japanese rhythm games. For others, it’s a full retro-style arcade full of 80s classics. I even know some who would be happy to find an arcade full of ticket machines with excellent payout ratios. While I love seeing all of those, they aren’t what I’m looking for.
To me, a perfect arcade is one that hasn’t changed much in the last two decades. One full of fighting games, beat-em-ups, 3D racing games, and a DDR machine or two. Of course, a handful of newer games wouldn’t be bad. It wouldn’t be perfect if it didn’t have at least a few games I haven’t heard of. The atmosphere is vital, too!
Anyone who’s read my older posts has probably gathered all of this by now, but I felt it was worth repeating. When I heard that boardwalk towns have an arcade on nearly every block, I expected a bunch of fossil arcades closer to what I wanted to see. While a few fit that description, like that beautiful arcade in Bethany Beach, the vast majority have been pretty unremarkable. At this point, I was even beginning to regret taking this trip.
Tired and low on spirits, let’s see what today’s destination holds.
Today’s destination is Ocean City. The other Ocean City. There are two boardwalk towns on the upper East Coast with the same name. This one is the Atlantic City Boardwalk’s sister boardwalk. While Atlantic City is known for its casinos and adult entertainment, Ocean City is a more family-friendly counterpart. The main thing that sets Ocean City apart from other boardwalks is the sheer amount of gimmicky minigolf courses. I mean, the other Ocean City also had loads of them, but they were off the boardwalk. Here, they’re right alongside the arcades and tacky gift shops.
You may have also noticed that the cloudy sky is back. That alone put me in a better mood. My skin still hurt from yesterday.
Our first stop of the day is the reason I went on this trip in the first place. I don’t mean that I came out here to see this arcade; it’s the arcade that sparked my interest in boardwalk arcades, to begin with. I was searching for a good image of a DDRX machine for a friend and stumbled upon this image. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of an arcade still had both Supernova and DDRX, so I did some research. One thing led to another, and here I was.
Arcades Visited: 26
I’m not sure whether my first reaction was disappointment or relief. It wasn’t quite what I had hoped, but it’s still a LOT better than the mess of boring arcades at Wildwood.
You can usually sum up an arcade with something like “90s arcade”, “modern arcade,” or “ticket arcade.” Jilly’s is one of the most balanced arcades I’ve ever been to. It’s got a perfect blend of older and newer games, while the ticket games are few enough not to consume the arcade. It’s easy to see why it was voted the best arcade on the Jersey Shore.
I skimmed over it last time, so let’s start with more than you’ve ever wanted to know about Let’s Go Island. Not even Wikipedia will tell you as much about this game as I can! For, you see, it doesn’t even have its article.
As the name suggests, this game is Sega’s 2011 sequel to Let’s Go Jungle. I’ve made it clear that I’m not a fan of Jungle for various reasons, but I can’t bring myself to hate this one. The first time you fail a quick time event, you’ll figure out precisely what this game is trying to do. My favorite is when you fail to duck under a low-hanging branch, and both characters get slammed in the face. It’s the loud “DONK” noise that sells it.
Let’s Go Island fixes nearly every problem with the first game by making no attempt to take itself seriously. The two main characters this time are laid-back Australia tour guide Zack and the world’s most obnoxious Canadian brat, Beth. Beth is so irritatingly unlikable that listening to the two squabble throughout the game makes it worth the price of admission. While most of the game is standard machinegun-style shooting, the game has short sections where you’re forced to use a different weapon. Included among them is a sequence where you mow down an army of mutant crabs by using your golf swing to pelt them with balls, popping campaign bottle corks at enemy frogs, and even a bit where you bop evil bats with maracas (and yes, the characters do shake to the beat when you’re not swinging them). The final boss is so amazingly ridiculous that I won’t even spoil it here. It entirely makes up for the first game’s evil butterfly.
The other main thing to note about this game is that there are four versions of this machine. The first two are just the different sizes nearly every shooting game has. The other two versions are far, far more interesting. One of them, Let’s Go Island: Dream Edition was released just this year. I’ll talk more about those two in a later post.
Seriously, play this one. It’s awesome.
They also had the original and Transformers Human Alliance. Wikipedia says the Transformers game is a spiritual successor to the Let’s Go games, but I’m not entirely sure if I buy that.
Like most arcades, the newer ones were kept up front. The older racing and shooting games were held in a back section. These three well-weathered machines were the only of their kind back there. Anyone who uses the Galaga machine to play Ms. Pac-man is an asshole.
The real surprise here is Jr Pac-man, of all things. Remember the kid Pac-man and Ms. Pac-man graphically conceived in Ms. Pac-man? Well, he had his own game at some point. It’s the same as the first two Pac-man games, except with some nifty new features. First up, the mazes in this game are twice the size of ordinary, so the game has a scrolling screen to let you see the rest of it. Second, those fruits (now toys) that nobody bothers to eat now factor into gameplay. Every time they touch a regular dot, the dots get bigger and gives you more points at the cost of slowing Jr Pac-man down. If you decide to ignore the toy altogether, it’ll eventually crash into one of your power pellets and destroy it. Keeping an eye on these bonuses is now a crucial part of gameplay.
I remember finding an old photo of this arcade from the 80s (that I can’t find at the moment). If you look carefully, this exact Pac-man Jr machine was still there.
I’ve never seen those header signs before, but this won’t be the last
One of the things I was looking forward to most about this arcade was that they had a Sega Racing Classic machine. Sega Racing Classic is an HD update of the original Daytona USA. I’ve never actually run into it before, so I was hoping I’d finally be able to see it. It turned out to be the original Daytona, USA.
This is House of the Dead III Deluxe. There are a lot of different versions of this machine. There’s this one, the huge one you usually see, the more space efficient version, the Naomi Universal version, and manyNaomi Universal version, and a plethora of bootlegs (I had linked a photo of that last one, but the sit took it down). Really though, I just like finding excuses to mention games that had a Naomi Universal version.
The other Jurassic Park games are so common that I forget they made Jurassic Park III. What most people don’t know about this game is that it was designed for a unique cab with a moving projector screen. Not only did it have a motion sensor that would require you to physically move out of the way of attacks instead of pushing the ESCAPE button, but it also had a projection monitor that would move up and down based on the POV. If a giant dinosaur loomed over your head, you’d have to shoot upward to hit it. You can see it in action here. Nobody seems entirely sure if this got a limited US release or if a handful of them were just imported.
Oh man, it’s a Cruis’n World machine that still has the sign intact. A lot of times, arcades will throw them out to make the machine easier to move around.
I think that’s Tekken Tag Team on the right, but I must have been too distracted to get a picture of it. I assure you, I’m usually very thorough when it comes to documenting arcades.
You know, Ghost Squad also had a…
Fine. I’ll stop.
Before we move out of the back corner, I want to mention this. Skeeball is a big deal in boardwalk towns. One of Jilly’s most significant selling points is its 10-cent skeeball machines. The local players all come here to practice. You even get a free game if you hit a specific score, so a good player can stay on these for a ridiculously long time.
Here’s something you don’t see much of anymore. In the late 90s, an odd subgenre of sports games emerged when everyone was competing to see who could make the biggest arcade game. The idea was that they would combine video games with those basketball shooting games to create these weird sports simulation things. The soccer version was so popular that you’ve probably seen them before, but they also existed for sports like golf and baseball. They’re still around, but regular arcades got sick of how much space they take up. Nowadays, they’re mainly marketed as an attraction at batting cages…
Big Buck Hunter HD, now featuring Duck Dynasty. Remember that this is the same game that has the “Doe of the Dead” zombie deer shooting mode and cockroach hunting minigame. I tell you, this game is bizarre.
From what I’ve heard, this specific game also has an online mode. I don’t remember the exact details, but I’ve listened to arcade owners bitch about what a rip-off the subscription model is. They make it sound like a racketeering scheme. Subscription models are a very controversial subject in America, especially regarding import games that require going online even to function. It’s a big reason that modern rhythm games never come stateside anymore except in arcades like R1, where the arcade’s parent company in Japan already pays the subscription cost.
Fast and the Furious Super Bikes, Super Bikes 2, and Super Cars. I understand that Super Cars was kind of a rush job they threw together before losing the license to the movie. It’s basically a car-based hack of the Super Bikes games. There aren’t even any new levels since they were all taken directly from Super Bikes. Look, it even recycles the marquee from Super Bikes 2!
Come to think of it; there hasn’t been a new Super Bikes since 2010. I wonder if they pulled the plug on this series after they lost the F&F rights. (UPDATE: Super Bikes 3 came out a few years later)
The Star Wars Battle Pod. I’ll hold off on talking about this one for now, but I’ll say this: It’s tough to figure out how to get into it. This arcade had to put a bunch of stickers on the machine telling people how to open the door. I can’t blame them. It’s not immediately apparent that there’s a door on the left side.
Before I get to the main attraction, I’d like to take a moment to highlight some of Jilly’s eccentricities. Any arcade can have good games. Only a good arcade can have personality.
First up is an old romance tester machine. Unlike the last one, this one correctly gave me the highest possible score.
Next up is a goddamn dog tag machine sitting in the middle of the arcade. The soda machine next to it makes it look like these are off in a particular area, but they’re both right next to Let’s Go Jungle. I’ve been to over a hundred arcades, and I can confidentially say that this is the only one I’ve ever seen trying to pass a dog tag machine off as an arcade game.
70s photo booth. Now these are far more common to find at arcades, but it still feels horribly out of place in Jilly’s for some reason that I can’t really put my finger on. Could it be because it’s right next to a machine that blares this 24-7?
Look, it’s one of those old medal press machines. This isn’t my first encounter with one. I always make it a point to make a souvenir medal whenever I see it, but this one was sadly out of order. I’d have liked to have a keepsake from this arcade, too. (by the way, they had one at Remember When Arcade, but I try to forget I have that keepsake)
The real surprise was that Star Wars Trilogy machine. I’ve seen the game hundreds of times but never knew a booth existed. I had to get a closer look at the inside.
Once I got closer, I finally realized what I was looking at. Someone took a standard version of this machine and bolted a bunch of walls to it. They even moved the header forward to make it look more authentic.
10/10, Jilly’s. You deserve the title of best arcade on the Jersey Shore. Crazy stuf like this reminds me why I write 4000-word essays about arcades.
With that out of the way, let’s look at the main attraction. This is something I’ve only seen once before and have never been able to photograph for the blog. This here is an authentic DDRX machine! Do you remember how I said Betson (the guys who manufacture Raw Thrills’ machines) made a machine so awful that it nearly killed DDR in the west? This is that machine! The Supernova 2 machine might be gone, but it wasn’t the real highlight of the arcade, anyway. First released in the states in 2008, the DDRX series of games are the ones that bridge the Supernova series and the modern games.
It looks like this machine had to swap in some parts from the old Supernova 2. It didn’t help since they were unplayably broken. I mean, more broken than DDRX pads usually are.
I’m not a technician, so I can’t go into the exact details, but these pads are notoriously bad. I know the solid chunk of metal between the arrows is one problem, but other things cause some severe sensitivity issues. They supposedly fixed most of the problems for the X2 release, but it was so limited that I’ve never seen one. X2 was the last release for the next six years, leading many to assume that the series was dead. In 2015, Round 1 and Dave and Busters finally negotiated a US release for the most recent version, but that’s a story for another time.
The most notable thing about this machine, aside from the irritating announcers, is that it has an actual USB port if you’re in the mood to make your own arrow charts for songs. It’s way better than lugging around a Playstation 1 memory card. The machine also has an e-amuse pass reader, despite every attempt at bringing e-amuse to the states flopping horribly until 2015. It took an entire decade of trying, but they eventually did it.
That’s everything worth seeing at Jilly’s. I doubt anything else in Ocean City can top the Number One Arcade on the Jersey Shore, but maybe there will be something else worth seeing.
Here’s the number one mini golf course in South Jersey! They have two animatronic gorillas who sit in that helicopter sign and sing. Is it any wonder they’re number one?
Unlike the dinky golf courses in the other Ocean City, the ones around here compete to outdo each other. Pirates of the Golden Galleon may not have had gorillas in a helicopter, but they did have gold letters on their signs. Also, note that these aren’t just mini golf courses; this is ADVENTURE GOLF.
In order to compete with bongo-playing gorillas, the Pirates of the Golden Galleon needed their own secret weapon. This is Chief, one of five robot parrots chilling around the entrance. The five joke, tell stories and remind visitors what it means to be alive—mostly the first thing.
These five are totally cooler than the gorillas, but I’m biased.
Jilly’s reach extends far past the arcade.
That reminds me, did you know Dave and Buster’s “Eat. Drink. Play.” slogan came from a similar chain of sports bar arcades called Jillian’s? They went under in 2004 and were bought up by D&B. By the way, you want to hear a visual novel pitch about a girl named Jillian who gets roped into co-hosting a kid’s cartoon block that the main host is secretly using as propaganda to defeat a wizard who secretly controls the government? No? Another time, then. (EDIT: This was an inside joke for the four people who used to read this blog when I first started it)
No, this has nothing to do with the pirate-themed ADVENTURE GOLF course from earlier. There are just a lot of pirate-themed facilities out here. While I’m not a big fan of pirates, I’m a goddamn sucker for parrots. Look at that giant one up top. If I remember right, the speakers would play conversations between the parrot and pirate, most of which consisted of trying to get you to come in and win tickets.
Look how happy the parrot on the sign looks. He’s got his little bandana and key ready to open some treasure chests. That bird will never be happier than this moment.
Arcades Visited: 27
Castaway Cove is an entire amusement park with an arcade in the front. We’ll only be peeking in the arcade for a moment. You can tell that the ADVENTURE GOLF’s sense of design isn’t restricted to just miniature golf courses. Every amusement facility in Ocean City (NJ) has an elaborate, exciting sense of showmanship. Just look at that giant skull!
It’s impossible to have an arcade that sticks to a specific theme; this place tries its damnedest to feel pirate-y. Whether intentional or not, flashy, neon machines are kept to a bare minimum, instead favoring more drab-looking machines. This is also one of the few places where Deadstorm Pirates is fantastic instead of just being a space filler. Atmosphere is everything!
Dear god, they actually found another pirate-themed arcade machine. Well, calling this an arcade machine is a bit of a stretch. It’s made by a company specializing in things you’d find around amusement parks, like those 25 RC boats. It turns out that there are four variations of this, including a firefighter, jungle, and medieval, so you have a good chance of finding one that fits whatever theme your amusement park has.
But what kind of theme is the firefighter one meant for?
They even have a shooting gallery, so you know damn well this is a pirate-themed establishment! Yo-ho-ho!
Gorillas vs. pirates seems to be a recurring thing out here.
This was taken at another mini golf place. It’s a plastic seagull that must be kept under two layers of cage at all times.
I’m going to have to split the post here, so I’ll leave you with photographic evidence that Ocean City’s golf courses are excellent. The next arcade threatens Jilly’s title of Number One Arcade on the Jersey Shore.
